Shri Ved Prakash
Goyal, Union Minister for Shipping, said in an era characterized
by ever increasing competition compelling the trade to look for
better alternatives of transportation by the cheapest and fastest
possible modes ‘North-South Transit Corridor’ would be a big boon
to the trade at large in the member countries namely, the Russian
Federation, Iran and India. Since this corridor and its subsequent
utilization for transportation of cargoes would herald stronger
bilateral links between the member countries boosting their respective
trade and economies, he called upon the exporters to make full
use of this North-South Corridor. The Minister was inaugurating
a High-Level Business Meet with the 65-Member Delegation from
Iran here today organized by Federation of Indian Export Organisations.
Shri Goyal said that
India, Iran and Turkmenistan had signed an agreement on international
transit of goods and Iran is emerging as a major transit country
between South and South-East Asia and CIS and East Europe. For
cost effective and faster transportation of goods, the North-South
Corridor provides the best alternative transportation for the
export-import trade of all the countries constituting this Corridor.
The Minister added that the transit trade through Iran is feasible
both for the commercial and logistics point of view as Iran has
a well-developed transport infrastructure in the form of roads,
railways and ports. The port of Bandar Abbas is better located
to serve as a transit port. This route will be cost effective
by nearly 20% to 30% and the transit time would be reduced considerably
by 15 days. The prospect of development of goods traffic was very
bright and the prospect of Indian goods becoming more competitive
in the Russian market because of the savings in time and overall
costs, the Minister added.
Shri Subhash Mittal,
Vice President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations said
that India’s exports to Iran have increased from US$ 159 million
in the year 1998-99 to US $ 255 million in 2001-02. India mainly
exports items like drugs, pharmaceuticals & fine chemicals,
engineering items, primary & semi-finished iron & steel
etc. to Iran and in turn imports dry fruits & nuts, inorganic
& organic chemicals, etc. and he assured that Fedration would
create awareness of the North-South Corridor among our exporters
and importers.
